Category: Workforce

What is a visual machine? It is equipment that speaks directly to the people that use it. It is intuitive and easy-to-understand. It is well maintained and reliable. A visual machine identifies key maintenance and safety instructions at a glance without confusion.

Jobs and careers are constantly on the minds of millions of Americans. We may be hungry for success, but do we have the right training and skills to actually achieve success? Today’s infographic discusses the growing “Skills Gap” in the American workforce.

A skills gap is defined (by The American Society for Training and Development) as “a significant gap between an organization’s current capabilities and the skills it needs to achieve its goals.” This means that employers and employees are not exactly on the same page when work needs to be done efficiently.

Why does this gap exist, you ask? The top reasons for the skills gap, according to today’s infographic, includes “skills of the workforce that don’t match company strategy, goals, markets, or business models; a lack of bench strength in the company’s leadership ranks; and less of an investment in training/a lack of support for employee learning and development in training/lack of support for employee learning and development.”

We spend thousands of dollars on college educations, yet we still aren’t given the right tools to be successful at our jobs? As a recent college graduate, this idea is quite terrifying. And this statement is equally unsettling: “Worldwide, young people are three times more likely than their parents to be out of work.”

How exactly we go about closing this skills gap, I can’t be sure of. But, I can say that mutual respect for employers and employees goes a long way when doing a job. Employers have to want to invest time and energy into helping their employees, and employees have to be willing to listen, be open to their employer’s wishes, and work hard. Caring about the work you do, who you work for, and who you work with, makes a huge difference in the quality of work that ends up being achieved at the end of the day. [Via]